Redemption

noun

1. an act of redeeming or atoning for a fault or mistake, or the state of being redeemed.
2. deliverance; rescue.
3. Theology. deliverance from sin; salvation.
4. atonement for guilt.

I’ve been spending a lot of time in walking prayers.  You know, those moments you ‘shotgun’ a prayer up into heaven, hoping they’ll stick.  I’ve also done quite a bit of reflection on my life, leading to questions that I pose to myself.  

Questions like:

Who saved me?

What’s my purpose?

Where is all this leading?

I know I’m not alone in this.  I’ve talked with enough of you to realize we all have these types of questions inside us.

Other Questions:

What will my legacy be?

Will I be loved?

Will I make a difference?

The first big ones that I ask people, strangers, friends, coworkers if given the chance…

Where do you place your hope?

What do you trust?

It’s amazing to see how you can elicit a conversation not by singling out our own faith, but by honestly seeking to learn about another human being.  And by asking a deep question that they may not even know the answer to in that moment.  

But before you do this you have to answer those questions for yourself.  Can’t talk to others about faith, hope, spirit shit without knowing who you are, and what brought you through the trials you’ve faced. 

I’m redeeming myself.  I am still the selfish person I have always been, but I do find that I want desperately to be more.  Not singing in the choir, preaching to masses, finding remote jungle villages to dwell in and reach.  I just want to make some small mark with the time I have left. 

And I’d like everyone who reads this to be a part of that.

I found my redemption.  I carried unwarranted guilt and the shame for years.  But there are so many who can’t find that place of rest.  If you have real relationship with others, I ask you to search those around you.  There’s probably someone in your group, in your work, parent at the ballfield who desperately needs to know that there is HOPE.

And at this time of year there’s so much fake hope that maybe one person reaching out to another in honest connection could let someone without any hope find something real.  

You can’t smother them with God and Religion (though we could argue “true religion”) because they don’t need that.  He fed them before he taught them.  He walked and listened to them before he healed them.  He cried for one before he gave him new life.

I’ve done it all wrong.  My whole fucking life.  

We have to meet each other where we are, not with piety or the thinly veiled guise of ‘we care about others’.  Just reach out.  Find that one person near you that might need to know that you care.  Show them you have hope and maybe they’ll see something that often disappears this time of year for many out there (it’s not Yo-Ho-Ho for all of us!).

I’m paying back a debt of gratitude to the one who saved my ass when I didn’t deserve it.  Then he did it again – when I REALLY didn’t deserve it.

Will you?

Reach out to ONE person around you. 

Show them you care. 

Offer something more than mere words or false promises of Joy.  

Lend them a hand.  Give them your ear.  Sup with them.

We all carry burdens.  But when you feel that weight come off, it’s like you just need to share some of that good MoJo with others!

Peace,

Chad

Happy F#-ing Holidays

A friend just called.

Her kid’s dad decided to leave this life last night.

Happy F#-ing Holidays.

How do you tell the girls? What the fuck can you really say?

I sat in a hospital room years ago, pondering how I’d explain.  I’m a survivor of a failed attempt.  And I’ll tell you what, you start by being real damn honest.

I met him once, exchanging maybe two words.  I wouldn’t have known he dealt with any type of depression.  Who really ever knows?

But don’t wait until this.  It’s not about “what would that do to your kids?” or “think about those you’d leave behind”.

For Someone struggling with depression, one of the darkest secrets is that they CANNOT think about any of it.  Life is too much.  Why the hell do you think any of us would even contemplate it if we could think straight.

“they’d be better off without me” or “I just can’t keep hurting them”, “I can’t tell them this <big, dark secret>”.

We have to start being honest.  With those around us, and with those we love.  With ourselves.  And fuck it – get some help!!  There’s no shame, and if someone shames you, I’ll go get my Louisville Slugger and help them with a paradigm shift.  We lose people every day.  And sometimes, like today, it hits a little too close to home.

The Holidays are hardest.  Time alone, or time around extended family trying to be happy.  It’s not Christmas Carols, gifts and holiday feasts to everyone.  We hide in plain sight.  We eat our share of stuffing and then we go home and contemplate things that many don’t understand or want to know.  But if you want true, authentic relationship – well, those are often dirty.  They come with a lot of anxiety, depression, PTSDs, Trauma, addictions, and so on.

If you know someone, and yes, I have a group that still checks on me at certain times even though it’s been almost ten years, love on them.  Talk to them.  Annoy the ever-loving shit out of them.  You won’t change their mindset or keep them from deciding, but you might show them love.  And we need a whole lot more of that. 

I pray for his family.  I’m not angry at him.  I’m sad.  The ones left behind may never fully understand.  He didn’t do this to hurt any of you.  

He was lost.  

And just didn’t know the way back home.

Jingle Fucking Bells, Ho Ho NO.

Note:

I’ve been told over the years, “they should just have prayed it out” or “if they’d only given it to Jesus”.  This is a fallacy.  We’re imperfect creatures in a more imperfect world.  Depression kills even the believers, the good, those full of life.  So please don’t judge harshly those of us who reached bottom.  When you’re in that place there’s no logic, reason or belief that anything will help, not even God.  Please take it from one who was rescued by God in his weakest moment.

Peace to us all.

Chad

HEAR ME - the Art of Listening

“I just want to be heard.”

It’s not my phrase but wise words from a close friend.  And it rings true.  Don’t we all want to be heard, to be understood?  Feel connected in a world of total disconnection?  I mean yes, we can ‘connect’ immediately with each other, with millions of others on social media on multiple devices but how many times are we really just surface in those connections?  When was the last time you touched someone close, gave them a hug, sat and listened to them talk, sharing a moment and the air between you?  

Those moments, those times together with special people are like the oxygen that mingled in-between that conversation.  It brings life and is so important!

But this isn’t about touch - this is about being heard, but more than that, listening.

I did A LOT of crappy dating over the first two months I was in Portland.  To fill time, to fill the “Big-ole Annie-sized hole”, to try and find something of substance.  But so many times I found myself sitting across from a nice human being and would watch lips move and words come out and not hear much of anything.  I wasn’t up for listening.  I couldn’t hear them and nothing was changing that (well something changed that, but I’m saving that writing just a little longer).

Down deep we all want to be heard and UNDERSTOOD!

And to do that I’ve come up with some ideas to make myself more available to hear what those I care about are trying to say.

1. Be present.

2. Turn the world OFF.

3. Schedule a time.

4. Prepare to SHUT UP. 

5. Wait your turn.

6. Ask them to repeat.

7. Recap and grow.

The order still may need some tweaking, but here’s my rationale for this:

If you’re like me, you get distracted by a noise, a sound, a color flashing outside the window (Squirrel!!!).  I have to put my phone down, turn off the TV, find someplace quiet and do everything I can to Be Present.  Turning the world OFF for a little while and focusing on another person can be difficult, but not impossible.  Quite honestly, it may take several times to get to a point of being able to truly focus on that person.  But merit points for trying and growing in this!

To make this even more of a success, Schedule a Time to talk.  Finding a time with less distraction allows for greater connection between two people, especially if you’re having to connect over Factime or phone call.  Scheduling those longer, deeper conversations with someone can ensure that you are fully able to be present and aware of what they are saying. 

Here’s the hardest part – SHUT UP!  Learn to close your mouth and really just listen.  As you do this, also start to quiet your mind to your own agenda.  Find what they are saying without need to fix, to help, to bend toward your opinions.  Just listen.  Shut up and BE present.  See how they work together?  I SOOOOOOOOOO Struggle with this one.  I interject, I want to help, to console, but what I need to do is just be able to hear them.  Yes, there are times to say something, but be mindful of when you use these.  Space and silent listening may be scary at first, but it will eventually be a gift to both of you as you grow together.  Waiting your Turn allows you to know each other and when it’s the right time, give your thoughts, or maybe just let them know you do hear them.  You are trying to understand.  You may have to ask them to repeat certain parts, to gain better understanding.  

When you feel like they’ve given you what they need to say, go back through it.  Ask them to Repeat sections.  See if you’ve captured their feelings and truly have an understanding of what they need, want, how they feel, where their head is…. Recaps are great even in personal conversations.  It gives pause for the one sharing and lets them know they really were heard.  And if something isn’t heard correctly, they can redirect and it allows room for huge growth together.

Growth comes as we sit and listen to each other.  

So, grow with each other.  Show you care. 

When we’re heard and understood.

Would You Still?

If you knew that it would be hard.  If every day would be a struggle to get to work, to feed the family, to find clean underwear, to get homework done, to pay the bills, to find time to take a decent poop, would you still?

And that’s just the ‘normal’ (what the F*ck is normal anyway?!).

What if things really got hard?  

What if you went into it knowing that your heart would be broken?  That he’d stop being as funny, as light-hearted?  That those so-called dreams would fade into nights sleeping like long shadows cast across separate sides of the bed?  That intimacy would be replaced with imitation of the days you had once shared?

And then…

What if it REALLY got hard?

Sickness comes and won’t let go.  Age and ailments collide, and you’re left holding the hand of someone who looks the part, but who’s eyes are those of a stranger.  And you watch and you wait.  Time doesn’t stand still – it races forward, and you find yourself a helpless observer as life plummets closer and closer to death.  

Would you still?

I’d understand if you said no.  Who wants to live in the fear of knowing something tragic is right around the corner?  That relationships and reality are going to hurt and gouge at the deepest parts of your heart?

But…

That’s what we do.  Every.  Day.

If you live, breathe, feel at all you know that life isn’t about being happy.  Life is about finding more.  It’s about taking each day that’s handed you and finding the peace and solace that can only come in realizing a greater purpose.  In one thing we can be sure.  We are going to leave here one day, and along the way it’s how we face those seasons of doubt, suffering, pain, hurt, that will define us more than accumulating ‘prosperity’ in worldly stuff or “Be Happy” doctrine.

I have lived rather shallow.  I’ve never had the deep relationship that I have always known I was made for.  But I will tell each and every one of you this…

If you have one of those loves, protect it.  Cherish it.  Serve it.  

We will hurt each other.  I’ve said that for a long time.  If you want to be in relationship, true, deeper relationship, then you’re gonna hurt.  You’re gonna sting each other.  You’re gonna say the wrong words, do something terrible and just be an all fire A$$ (that’s mine!).  And in today’s world you just quit.  It gets hard and we bail.  Say it’s over, file the right papers and 3-6 months later it’s a fresh start.  

I’ve done it.  Had my reasons.  I’m not going to bash on divorce.  Life is f*c%ing hard.

So…

I’m embarking on a journey.  Learning to let go of the way I want things; I’m praying and hoping for everything I started this blog with.  Hard, disappointing, hurting, real.

How can we be committed to someone only in the good times?  What happens when they get sick?  When they actually say the words that scathe you?  When they become distant?  Would you still?

What if the answer was “Yes, I will”?

I am 100% sure that there will be bad days.  Seasons of hard.  Storms and the quiet that comes as each is trying to find words or safety.  Tears.  Regrouping (hopefully). 

If given the opportunity, and someone comes along that you just know that God has landed in your path, beyond the romance, beyond the fun times and the laughter – DO.  NOT.  LET.  THEM.  GO. 

Laugh with them.

Cry with them.

Hurt with them.

Care for them.

Lay with them.

Weep for them.

Share with them.

Pray with them.

I’ll hold your hand.  I’ll sing to you.  I’ll apologize.  I’ll listen.  I’ll shed tears when you’re in pain.  I’ll fight for this.  I’ll share my innermost thoughts.  I’ll be here.  I’ll show up.

Someday.